Well, I was going to say "nobody but Monkeyboy understands the complexities of this issue,"

I'm curious: Upon what do you base your surmise that Monkeyboy understands these complexities, WildWind? I've never heard him break down at any length what he is doing. We got a few thoughts from him on this thread, but I think he may have felt agitated and thus didn't speak as dispassionately as he might otherwise have.

I tend to believe you are letting your personal fondness for the monkey cloud your judgement.

One problem I have with this line of humor is that he runs it from his primary user account. If this stuff came from an obvious "character" - an alter ego - then I think the audience would be more willing to focus on the whole and what the speech says about the speaker. You brought up Archie Bunker as an example of the successful employement of racist humor. But the way I see it, there was no racist humor in All in the Family. That was a show about a racist, who himself was the subject of the audience's laughter everytime he spoke. What Archie says is funny because he is ignorant and does not realize it. But would those lines be funny if delivered by Bob Newhart in his 70s show? I think you see my point. Monkeyboy is on thin ice delivering his stuff right from the mothership, cos he doesn't otherwise present himself as an ignorant, pitiful fool.

Okay, WildWind answered a lot of this anyway, so I think I'll take Strawman's point and shut up already, as I am likewise getting pretty tired of this.

So, the last two things I wanted to address briefly:

In reply to:

Don't you ever feel that all the indignant huffery over stuff like this serves only to foster an environment where minorities are forced to feel shame about someone else's stupid behavior?

No. And when I see people making misogynistic/queerphobic comments and someone else calls the person out on it, I don't feel like they're creating an environment where I have to feel shame either.

In reply to:

Why would you assume that a black person would automatically feel cowed in the presence of whites?

I'm not gonna go into the stuff WW already covered there, but I'd just like to say that my assumptions on this matter generally come from talking with and listening to various people of color, and their experiences with such matters. Maybe according to TW they'd be "humorless" people of color, but well, they have to deal with this shit on a fairly regular basis. So I'm not just pulling wild speculations out of thin air here.

Good work. That was way less judgemental. Now pull back a bit on the self-righteusness and you're golden.

In reply to:

So I'm not just pulling wild speculations out of thin air here.

No, you're not. You're instead assuming that the people you have come in direct contact with are, in fact, totally representative of an entire population. It's an educated guess, at best.

By the way, I thought this might serve to prove that I'm not a racist: I was filling up at a gas station in a pretty scary neighborhood and had a conversation with a real, genuine negro. He even had a packet of tobacco in his front shirt pocket and drove an 82 Lincoln Town Car in which his woman was sleeping. So there.

Monkeyboy is on thin ice delivering his stuff right from the mothership, cos he doesn't otherwise present himself as an ignorant, pitiful fool.

And here is yet another example of the corner I have admittedly painted myself into.

All I can really say in my defense is that I am a big fan of Steve Martin's old stand up material. Don't worry, there's more to explain that. One thing that I really noticed - and admired - about it was his freedom to be intelligent one minute and then present himself as a total moron the next. I like(d) that the line was never totally drawn.

I don't know if it's too much to ask, but I'd like to think that people will take what I say and do as a whole rather than pick apart single moments. If you were to look at only my posts responding to what I see were problems of censorship, you could easily see me as a foaming-mouthed 1st Amendment nutbag (which I sometimes am). If you were to look only at my responses to newbies, you could see me as a sort of cerebus with clown makeup (which I sometimes am - though less these days). There are a lot of things that I "do" and, frankly, I think I do them well. But all of it is the end product of my posting style, which is to simply post whatever comes immediately to my head in any given circumstance. Sometimes it's a non-sequitor image response, other times it's a racist bit of humor that might or might not find a warm spot in your heart.

If there is any consistency to my posting, it is what I have told people over and over again: respond negatively and you're sure to get more and more of the same. It's just the way my brain works. As soon as I think someone's trying to tell me not to say something, I'm thinking of five different ways to say it.

Another thing I keep saying, and that bears repeating, is that I do understand how someone would be offended by some of the stuff I do. I have a really dark sense of humor and I get that it isn't for everyone. But it's a big fucking world out there so if someone's offended by me to any degree then all I can say is that, well, you get to be offended for a while. Boo fucking hoo.

I'm not sure if this answers anything or not, but that's as close to a coherent reply as I can give for now. Feel free to ask for clarification if you need it, though. Provided that it isn't too *cunty*, I'll do my best.

Seriously, I'm bored with all this talk about racism and all it entails now..

Can't we all just drop it for a couple of weeks?

That is all well and good but did you stop to consider that the good folk of TW might want the subject of racism discussed because they do not like the idea of sharing a messageboard with an out and out racist?

Are you a racist?

Don't act like you're above somebody if they insult you. Stop implying that monkeys only eat bananas - by Schizophrenic

That's a terrible oversimplification, Marquis. You underestimate the potential.....

My point was that all of this is "potential." We're talking about a completely hypothetical situation based on an extremeley limited set of facts, so I don't think it's any fairer to assume that a person would react one way than another.

In reply to:

You stop the blackface fuckers before they become lynchers. You can't let shit go 'cause it's "not that bad" on the spectrum of racism.

I feel that you are conflating "laughing at" with "giving a pass to," which shouldn't be the case. I could listen to Dubya flubbing his way through any number of speeches and laugh for hours - until, as Starlite rightly says, it stops being funny and starts being depressing - but why should that mean that I'm granting legitimacy to his sham Presidency?

In reply to:

Yes, often it can just be laughed at, but sometimes, when you are the target, it is fucking scary as shit.

Of course. It's all a matter of degree, as well as a matter of personal perspective. I do not mean to imply that because I find it appropriate to chuckle at some pictures of dumb white kids in blackface that that is the only appropriate response. Hell, it wouldn't be funny in person, either, at least not to me.

In reply to:

I'm starting to believe that no one here really understands the complexities of this issue.

I recognize any number of complexities - the difference between laughing at racists, at racist humor, with racists, enabling racists, fighting racists, racist racist racist!! - but I would never pretend to fully understand anything.

The uprise of mexicans and african americans in our general area has uprisen.I think some people feel threatened.

As I'm sure I've intimated before, racism is a fairly new issue in Ireland, but where I grew up there were fairly strong sectarian divisions pretty much across the board. Since real foreigners have landed in takin' our jobs and bombs are sadly infrequent these days, the traditional old values of hating those with a slightly different take on how to follow a certain first-century demagogue* have faded away, to some extent, in a new era of understanding and cross-community lovin'. Basically, it's now far more common and accepted to socialise and inter-marry with people of a different background, not that decent folk ever gave much of a damn about that sort of thing.

A guy I know has his birthday a few days after Christmas, and just over twelve months ago he invited a college friend and his girlfriend to stay for a few days for the party and New Year. My friend and his brothers happily and mendaciously told their mother that the visitors were of the other side, i.e. Protestants. Now the family involved are by no means small-minded bigots; they just wanted to ensure their guests wouldn't be made feel uncomfortable, or even unintentionally offended, by some reference to typical Irish Catholic life, whatever that might be. Neither the guest (Andy) nor his girlfriend were in on the joke, and they can only have assumed it was some bizarre tasteless running joke as the four sons of the house let out a constant stream of the most bigoted and sectarian insults and jokes they could think of. It was, of course, for their dear mother's benefit, to watch her scramble and apologise and chastise her sons and make her feel like she had disgraced their guests.

That was pretty funny.

* I think it came down to who was and wasn't allowed to wear latex on their private parts.

(power2charm) Upon what do you base your surmise that Monkeyboy understands these complexities, WildWind?

A number of things, including yes, my personal fondness for him as well as private conversation, but mostly the demonstration of the Monkeyboy character. Even though "Monkeyboy" is indeed Dan's mothership, there is a certain amount of characterization to "Monkeyboy" as a TW poster, as indeed there is to all of us. Monkeyboy has a long history of irony, of irreverence, and of saying things for the purpose of baiting the uninformed. He's developed a carefully-crafted character from which the racist content is just another bit of schtick from behind the clown makeup. Indeed, his posting history is exactly why I've developed a personal fondness for him.

It's true that Monkeyboy treads on thin ice, but, unlike most, he does a very good job of staying where the ice is just thick enough not to fall through.

In reply to:

(Marquis) I feel that you are conflating "laughing at" with "giving a pass to," which shouldn't be the case. I could listen to Dubya flubbing his way through any number of speeches and laugh for hours - until, as Starlite rightly says, it stops being funny and starts being depressing - but why should that mean that I'm granting legitimacy to his sham Presidency?

You're right, and I apologize for appearing to underestimate you. Indeed, laughing at people who are acting like idiots is often the best way to deal with it, but there is a fine line between deciding when to simply laugh, when to intervene, and when to blow it off. But yeah, I didn't mean to imply that laughing at is the same as endorsing. It's just that sometimes it's hard to differentiate laughing at from laughing with.

Sorry to resurrect this thread. I just felt I owed p2c and Marquis replies.